black girls matter

Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected, a new report from the African-American Policy Forum and Columbia University on the state of black girls was released today. The findings are dire.

From Black Girls Matter:

The study cites several examples of excessive disciplinary actions against young black girls, including the controversial 2014 case of a 12-year-old in Georgia who faced expulsion and criminal charges for writing the word “hi” on a locker room wall.  A whitefemale classmate who was also involved faced a much less severe punishment.  

According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education cited in the report, nationally black girls were suspended six times more than white girls, while black boys were suspended three times as often as white boys.

Data specific to New York and Boston demonstrates that the relative risk for disciplinary action is higher for Black girls when compared to white girls than it is for Black boys when compared to white boys.

●      In New York, the number of disciplinary cases involving black girls was more than 10 times more than those involving their white counterparts and the number of cases involving black boys was six times the number of those involving white boys, despite there being only twice as many black students as white students.

●      In Boston, the number of disciplinary cases involving black girls was more than 11 times more than those involving their white counterparts while the number of cases involving black boys was approximately eight times those involving white boys, despite there being less than three times as many black students as white students.

●      Rates of expulsion were even more strikingly disproportionate between black and white students, especially among girls.

Read the entire report here